New Approaches to Economic Challenges: Why the financial crisis requires a thorough rethink of the world financial system and much more

Adrian Blundell-Wignall, Special Advisor to the Secretary-General on Financial Markets, OECD

The global financial crisis has caused global recession and massive unemployment, and future generations will be adversely affected for many years to comeparticularly in the ability to pay future pensions and healthcare in the face of ageing populations. This lecture explains how this came about and what flaws in world economy were exposed by the crisis. The OECD believes financial reform has not been adequate, and other structural reforms are essential too before sustainable growth can be achieved. The global banks, however, have been very successful at lobbying against fundamental reform. The world therefore is vulnerable to another crisis if the key reforms continue to be avoided.

Dr Adrian Blundell-Wignall is the Special Advisor to the Secretary-General on Financial Markets and Deputy Director in the Directorate for Financial and Enterprise Affairs (DAF) at the OECD, effective from 14 February 2007. He is founder and chairman of a charitable foundation (The Anika Foundation) that raises and invests an endowment fund to provide scholarships in a critical area of healthcare. Mr. Blundell-Wignall is an Australian citizen. He has a 1st class Honours degree and PhD in Economics from Cambridge University, UK. He is the author of extensive publications on financial markets and monetary policy in learned journals and books, as well as broker analyst studies and reports.